It sounded so damning to hear it from her lips, but there it was. The ugly truth.
‘Yes.’
A moment of calm. She nodded, smoothed the dress over her legs, hands steady and sure.
Then the storm broke.
Jenni surged to her feet, eyes flashing. Katya yelped and scurried out of her way. ‘Stop it, Max. Just stop it. I know all about it.’
Max froze. ‘About what?’
‘About Berlin! About your friends! About Ilsa!’
The world tilted. Max hung on to the chair arms for support. No, he’d not heard right. It was a trick. It had to be a trick. She couldn’t know about Ilsa. It was impossible.
Before he could say anything, she grabbed a framed photo of Marty and thrust it into his face. ‘Look at my little boy! He asked me if you were a Nazi and I told him no, Max. I told him no. I lied to him.’
‘No, Jenni, you have it wrong.’ He slowly got to his feet, not wanting to spook or antagonize her in any way. He kept staring at her stomach, kept thinking of the moment she’d fallen on the stairs, and the horror when she’d realized the baby might be in jeopardy. He wouldn’t be responsible for putting her in that situation again. He had to calm her down, make her see reason.
But how did she know about Ilsa?
‘I don’t have it wrong, Max,’ she snapped. ‘I saw the picture. I saw you with them.’
‘What picture? I have no idea what you’re—’
And then he saw Jenni wince and her hands immediately go to her belly. His mind suddenly cleared.
‘Jenni,’ he said, measuring his words carefully, ‘I swear I will tell you the truth. I will explain whatever it is I need to explain, even if it means you never want to talk to me again. But please, you have to calm down. So much has happened to you today. You have to think of your blood pressure and the baby.’
She bit her lip, and he could tell she was torn between lashing out at him and protecting her child.
Finally, she nodded and sank back into the couch, taking deep, calming breaths.
‘I’m all right,’ she finally said. ‘Now start talking.’
He almost laughed. She was once more in control, and she wasn’t about to let him off the hook.
He too sat down. ‘First of all, what picture are you talking about?’
Here she hesitated, and colour stained her cheeks. ‘I – I found it. In the cottage. It’s of you and some men in Nazi uniforms. It looks like you’re sitting at a café.’
A memory stirred. A warm, golden summer day in Berlin. Ilsa nipping at his chin. Ernst and his friends commemorating Ernst’s promotion in the SS by insisting on taking a photo.
But he’d never had a copy of that photo.
Unless…
‘Where did you find it?’ he demanded.
She avoided his gaze. ‘It was in your family photo frame. On your nightstand.’
Damn Ilsa! She must have hidden it there. Another one of her sick, twisted games.
But the deeper cut came from Jenni, the one person he trusted above all others, who had violated his privacy.
‘Ilsa must have put it there when I was still in Germany. But you had no right to do what you did, to go through my things.’
She flinched at the fury in his voice, and well she should.
‘You’re right,’ she admitted.
For a moment, he thought she’d apologize, that they could go back to having a rational conversation and he’d be able to explain.
‘But if you hadn’t kept secrets from me,’ Jenni said, defiance sharpening her tone, ‘then I wouldn’t have had to resort to sneaking around.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘That’s no excuse and you know it. I trusted you!’
‘And I trusted you!’ she snapped. ‘I am the only one in this godforsaken town who believes you’re innocent, and you couldn’t be honest with me? You couldn’t tell me the truth? I haven’t kept any secrets from you! You know everything about me. But you couldn’t do me the same courtesy? How do you think that makes me feel?’
Her impassioned response shook him to his core. She was right. Of course she was right. She’d shared her deepest secrets with him and he couldn’t respond in kind. Why? Not only because he wanted to protect her, but because he didn’t want her to find out the truth of who he really was.
This conversation only solidified his earlier resolve to distance himself from her and Marty. If it meant keeping them safe, then he would risk jail, internment, even death. For her, he would gladly make the sacrifice.
‘Max?’
He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to gather his thoughts. ‘I’m sorry, Jenni, and I know that doesn’t mean very much. I imagine you must feel betrayed, and I don’t blame you. My only defence is that I did it to protect you.’
‘Protect me from what?’
‘From what I’ve done.’
He would tell her about Berlin, about Ilsa, about their sordid life together. But he would spare her from the worst part. She might, might, forgive him this. But forgive him for what made him flee Germany? Unlikely.
‘Max, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It matters who you are now.’
God love her for her optimism. But she didn’t know about the evil penetrating every rung of German society. She didn’t know how being encased in such a world could leave a stain on your soul that you’d never be able to scrub off.
‘I’m not so sure you’ll feel the same after I’ve told you.’
Jenni took a long, calming breath. ‘All right, Max, then tell me. Tell me about Ilsa.’
So he did. He told her about Ilsa, how their relationship had never been one based on trust and respect, but jealousy, revenge and lust. Any number of things would instigate a row between them that ended with her either stomping out of his flat or the two of them clawing at each other between the sheets.
He shuddered, his skin already prickling in remembrance. He’d allowed himself to be manipulated by her. Ilsa’s hold on him had been total, and even now he struggled to understand how they’d reached that point. It wasn’t just lust, but her ability to make him feel powerful and wanted.
‘I do not think I can accurately describe how angry I am at myself for staying with her as long as I did.’ His hands curled into fists and he resisted the urge to punch his leg, to punish himself physically. ‘Ilsa admired Hitler from the beginning, and she and her brother Ernst joined the Nazi Party even before Hitler came to power. Their father perished during the Great War, and they’d relied on each other to get them through those lean years afterwards. Ilsa hid her politics from me originally, almost as a way to lure me in, I suppose. Once I found out, I’d already met Ernst and knew how powerful he was in the Nazi Party. I didn’t like it or their politics, but the longer I stayed with Ilsa, the harder it became to break away.’
‘So you didn’t believe in Nazism… You don’t, do you, Max?’
‘Jenni, I swear to you, I am not a Nazi nor have I ever been one.’
‘But how do I know you’re telling me the truth?’
Her words stung. But hadn’t he been burying the truth of who he really was ever since he’d met Ilsa? Hadn’t he been hiding his past – and running from it – this entire time?
Maybe it would be best to let her think the worst of him. In the end, it would make what he had to do easier.
‘I am not a Nazi, but neither am I a saint,’ he said. ‘I voluntarily chose to keep company with Ernst and his friends. I stayed with Ilsa because I thought I loved her. I excused their actions and their cruelty. I witnessed the barbarity of the regime and watched her brother and his friends torture the Jews and anyone else who stood in their way. And I did nothing to stop it.’
Saying the words out loud drained him, but he couldn’t stop now. She had to know the whole of his weakness.
‘I was a coward. I should have said something, fought back somehow. Instead, I just let it happen.’
‘But… how could you have stopped it without putting yourself in d
anger?’
Her face had softened and he realized that, even now, while he was confessing, she didn’t want to believe. And why should she? He himself had struggled to understand why he’d stayed silent.
‘Don’t you see? I could have done something. All those people in Germany who did nothing… we are all to blame for this war, for all these deaths, for everything that has happened to the Jews and so many others. Those of us who knew it was wrong yet did nothing… we are just as guilty.’
‘Then if you feel this way, why didn’t you stay and help? Join the Resistance, do something. Why did you leave Germany?’
‘Because—’ He stopped short. He couldn’t tell her the worst part. He just couldn’t. God willing, she would never know what he’d done that last night in Berlin.
‘Because I didn’t have the moral courage to stay. So I ran.’
And if he hadn’t, he would have been arrested and undoubtedly shot.
Jenni put her hand on his arm. ‘You’re acting like you’re some horrible person, Max, when you’re not.’
A bitter laugh escaped him. ‘After all I’ve just told you, how can you say that?’
‘Because I know you.’ She knelt beside his chair. ‘Not just anyone would do what you’ve done for us. You took care of me even when you found out my secret. Not even my own mother did that! And you treated Marty like he was your son. You did it without a single complaint even though you knew the whole town was gossiping about us and threatening you.’ She took his hand in hers. ‘It wasn’t an act. It’s just who you are. A good person.’
Her fingers were icy. He remembered when they’d first met in the cottage.
Cold hands, warm heart.
‘I don’t know how to thank you for believing in me and standing by my side through all of this,’ he said. ‘But…’
She stared at him expectantly and his chest ached knowing what he had to say and do next. He didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay here with her and Marty, where reality existed in another dimension, too far away to touch them.
‘But what, Max?’
He took the palm of her hand, pressed a kiss into the soft folds, heard her gasp.
‘Mein Liebling,’ he whispered, ‘I have to go. I’ve put you in far too much danger as it is.’
‘You mean… you’re going back to the cottage, right?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m going to stay with Kooky until this whole mess is settled. You and Marty need to stay away from me.’
She looked stricken, but he couldn’t allow himself to be swayed.
‘Isn’t that a bit extreme?’
‘When it comes to Marty’s and your safety, nothing is too extreme.’
Defiance sharpened her cheekbones and she got to her feet. ‘I’ll be the judge of who I want to be around. You can’t keep me away.’
‘Jenni, don’t.’ He stood and gathered his coat, trying to ignore the tension so thick in the air it nearly suffocated him. ‘Please, just do as I ask. It’s for your own good.’
He felt her eyes on him as he tugged on his gloves, and he fought the impulse to say the hell with it and stay.
‘Max, don’t do this.’
There was anguish in her voice and he almost faltered. ‘I have to.’
His hand was on the doorknob. It would only be one turn, then two steps out of the door. Katya, ever faithful, stood beside him, ready to follow.
Don’t look back… don’t look back.
But in the end, like Lot’s wife, he couldn’t resist, and he turned around. Jenni stood in the middle of the room looking like a beautiful lost waif. She tugged her sweater close and brushed back the ever-present curls at her forehead, her bare toes curling into the carpet. But it was the utter devastation in her blue gaze that turned his limbs to stone.
‘Goodbye, Jenni.’
He forced the words out, forced himself to move out of the house and down the road. As he walked back to the cottage, he tried to ignore the black spectre hovering over him. But it was no use.
The darkness had returned.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After Max left, Jenni did the only thing that made sense to her: she kept going, taking one step at a time, one breath, one thought. And when she woke the next morning and tried to go about her day, she knew she needed to get out of the house. So she and Marty headed out to the family farm that afternoon.
The weather wasn’t as bitterly cold, and she found her father shovelling hay into the corral’s feeding trough, his sure, measured strokes as familiar to her as the cattle dipping their fuzzy heads into their feed. It was a feeding cycle repeated every year when the cows came in for their winter quarters. She’d watched her father do it, watched her brothers do it and had even done it herself. The repetitious motions allowed one to think, to sort through problems and untangle knots.
Dad saw her, but didn’t say anything. He knew she needed to talk, but the cows needed feeding first. Jenni and her father had been able to communicate silently ever since she was a little girl. So while he worked, she waited, listening to the cattle eat, crunching and snorting and butting heads.
The sounds normally soothed her. But not now. Turmoil swirled inside her like a dust devil.
Erik stopped shovelling and stuck the pitchfork back in the pile of hay. ‘I take it Marty’s up at the house?’
She nodded. ‘He’s helping Mom make peanut butter cookies.’
‘So what’s wrong, pumpkin?’
The use of the childhood nickname brought Jenni to tears, and she took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Daddy, I don’t know what to do.’
It came out more as a sob than anything, and she didn’t protest when Erik pulled her close. She gripped the rough edges of his coat, smelled the sweet hay and the sweat and the earthy scent that was uniquely his.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, her voice muffled against his denim coveralls. ‘I’m so sorry that I disappointed you.’
‘You didn’t disappoint me,’ he murmured. ‘In fact, I’m proud of you for keeping the baby.’
‘Proud of me?’ She sniffed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. ‘How can you be proud of me? I cheated on my husband and I’m going to have another man’s child.’
‘I didn’t say I was proud of you for those things.’ He sighed. ‘Truth is, I was pretty upset when your mother told me.’
‘I knew you would be, which is why I wanted to keep the whole thing a secret for as long as possible.’
Erik took her hand and threaded it through the crook of his arm. ‘Daughter, if you were about twenty years younger, I might think about sitting you in the corner for that.’ They started walking towards the barn. ‘Families don’t keep secrets from one another, especially this family.’ He gave her a sideways look. ‘And I don’t think your in-laws know how to keep a secret.’
She groaned. ‘So you heard about yesterday?’
‘Tony called me from the hospital. I’m sorry Sue has gone through such a hard time, but to do what she did…’ He shuddered and covered her hand with his own. ‘I can’t even think about it. I’m just glad everyone is safe.’
Jenni couldn’t think about it, either. After Max had left, she’d allowed the images in, replaying yesterday morning’s events one too many times. She’d had to lay a cool washcloth on her forehead just to calm down. That was a first. She had a stomach strong enough to tackle seeing a calf being born and to watch her mother chop off the heads of chickens. But seeing the bullet hole in the wall from a gun wielded by her mother-in-law had done her in.
They entered the barn. Dust motes flittered in the afternoon sunlight and a calico barn cat jumped on top of a gate and confidently walked down the narrow ledge between stalls. Jenni wished she could be so bold, to put both feet forward and walk the narrow road she must travel, holding her head high.
Sadly, she felt she could have done just that with Max by her side. Even now, after he’d revealed his past and she didn’t know what to think anymore, she couldn’t stand the thought of him not being
in her life.
Was that friendship? Or something more?
The bottom line was that he’d left because he didn’t want to put her in danger. What kind of man did that?
A good one.
‘You’re thinking awfully hard about something. Care to share?’
‘Where should I start?’
‘Where you always start. At the beginning.’
She told him about Rafe, about her plan to go to New York, about Max. About the photo in Berlin. About the black uniforms with the grinning skulls.
‘I don’t know what to think anymore,’ she finished. ‘I don’t know whether to believe him or not. The thing is, Max didn’t deny it. He admitted to being friends with those people.’
‘It takes a wise man to admit his mistakes.’ Her father sat on a worn wooden bench that Jenni had often used as a child and patted the spot next to him. She settled beside him and drew her coat closer, listening to the horses’ soft whinnying, watching the cat do her gymnastics as she hopped from one stall to the next. It smelled of manure and hay and old wood. It smelled of home. It smelled of peace.
She’d rarely seen Max at peace. He was always wary, never completely relaxed. But he had the guilt of a nation on his conscience. She’d watched the newsreels about the persecution of the Jews, the book burnings, the disgusting tactics of the German Wehrmacht. Max felt guilt because he knew those things were wrong; he knew they were against all that was honourable and good and righteous. Surely, if he were a Nazi, he wouldn’t care.
So he was either an incredibly good actor, or he was telling her the truth.
‘Well,’ her father finally said, ‘I’m not too thrilled to know the professor had Nazis for friends. But then again, I can’t imagine living in a country overtaken by such evil. How would you survive?’ He shook his head. ‘It makes you think. It makes you ask yourself, “What would I do?” ’
‘It’s easy to judge from a distance, isn’t it?’
‘It sure is.’
The afternoon sunlight began to wane, and even in the barn, she could feel winter’s fingers reaching for her, just as the gossip eventually would. The thought chilled her worse than any arctic blast. Max, though, had reacted unexpectedly to her pregnancy. He’d accepted her mistakes and stood by her. How could she walk away from him now?
The Stranger From Berlin Page 27
